a compulsive sorter

my mom reminded me today that i was one in the family that always organized her junk drawers and cleaned her garage when i was a kid. clearly, i liked to make order out of chaos. and clearly, i still do. as bits of found nature pile up on my desk, i instinctively push, pile, and sort the bits into pleasing-to-me groupings. sometimes i don’t even remember doing it…it’s as though the specimens just find each other. like this collection here. i especially like the reddish-brown bits in the oak leaves, the scallop shell, the iris seeds, and the squirrel-eaten pine cone. can any of you identify all the bits in this composition?

collection of brown nature bits